I hate to be bearer of bad news, but my warnings about the Republicans caving during the lame duck session has been proven correct. The tax deal was political suicide since it gave Obama the chance to appear as a centrist. What the GOP should have done was let the tax rates go up, then propose fundamental tax and regulatory reform. Then the onus could have been on Obama. Would he have had Harry Reid kill it in the Senate or would he have vetoed it? If he did either of those two things he would be put in a predicament as Americans see their take home pay go down. Instead the GOP did their usual surrender and Obama benefits. He now appears bi-partisan and is using his personality to win back independents. The Republicans appear weak and no one likes the weak horse. Now Obama’s popularity is surging on his appearance of strength and his cult of personality.

President Barack Obama is riding a surge of public support into next week’s State of the Union address, with more Americans approving of his performance and more seeing him as a political moderate, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

[…]

In the survey, 53% said they approved of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, up eight percentage points from December. Forty-one percent said they disapprove of the president’s performance, down from 48% last month. The poll surveyed 1,000 adults from Jan. 13-17.

Among political independents, positive views of Mr. Obama’s job performance surpassed negative views for the first time since August 2009. For the first time in a year, the president drew a positive reaction from white adults, when asked about their feelings toward Mr. Obama.

Read the rest: President’s Ratings Climb

Obama’s popularity will climb higher after the State of the Union. The media is taking the economy off the table by claiming this is as good as it will get. 2012 will be about Obama’s popularity and the GOP’s stupid tax deal will enable him to claim he cut taxes, when it was really about maintaining the rates. If you underestimate his demagogue cult appeal, look at this:

Eduardo D. Sepulveda, a retired 65-year-old independent who lives northwest of San Antonio, Texas, said he disapproves of the way the president—for whom he voted in 2008—is handling the economy, but he still has “faith in him.”

[…]

He wants to be in the center,” said Linda Bontrager, 50, a Republican from Goshen, Ind., who credited the new Republican majority for the president’s perceived shift. “His goal is to get people talking. He wants to get people to the table to work things out.”

Obama is using his personal appeal not his accomplishments to win back independents. It is working and the Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. So far the GOP House is not proposing an serious tax, regulatory and entitlement reform to expose Obama as a Leftist. The major candidates like Romney, Palin, Huckabee or Gingrich offer no new ideas or solutions and are damaged politically. Donald Trump is the only one with new ideas and speaking the truth that China and Saudi Arabia/OPEC are the enemy. Yet many Conservatives hate him because he’s from NY, has an abrasive personality and has been married three times without even listening to his ideas. It seems as if Conservatives can no longer think outside the box and do not realize the extent of America’s decline the last 10 years. Instead they just seem to care about family values without realizing that a stagnant economy destroys families.

If I was a betting man, I would wager Obama will be re-elected in 2012. The Republicans, through their weakness and tunnel vision, are enabling this and thus complicit in the continuing decline of America’s economic standing. The stupid party gets played like fools again and I’m tired of this act.

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